


It's Not Right (But It's Okay)

by AceQueenKing



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Drinking, F/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 22:35:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11656107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AceQueenKing/pseuds/AceQueenKing
Summary: Nihlus is damaged. Shepard is too.





	It's Not Right (But It's Okay)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KestrelShrike](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KestrelShrike/gifts).



 He sits down at the bar, holds up two fingers. The Barkeep slides one down to him. Horsks, of course. He doesn't look at the woman next to him beyond a cursatory glance.

'You've got some predictable habits," she says, and he looks at her for the first time in years. Literally years. She was dead, now she's not, and after the two years of therapy recovering from the worst year of his life in which he lost his teacher and his student, she somehow undoes all the progress he's made in five simple words.  
  
"Shepard," he says, and he still sounds surprised to see her, he knows, despite the fact that he isn't, not really. There's been plenty of warnings in the intelligence briefings, plenty of whispers in the dark that she was still alive. He just hadn't believed them.

"Nihlus," she says, and he winces, without meaning to, because _Saren - Nihlus - what are you doing here - the Council thought you could use some help on this one -_ keeps echoing through his head, and when she places a hand on his, he pulls back, like he's been shot again.

"Sorry," he says; it's not her fault, it isn't. It's just she's so attached to his most frustration mission, the one where his teacher played him like a fiddle and left him helpless, and his student saved the galaxy only to die in a suspicious ship fire several months later. He'd been in the hospital for most of the Saren chase, had been left to gripping a pistol on his bed during the Geth attack and wondering how many he could take out before they killed him. None, it turned out; Saren had left the Citadel hospital alone.

She nods like she understands and maybe she does. It's thanks to her that he's alive. Sometimes he wonders if it would have been better if he wasn't. His Spectre career hasn't recovered after two years of fallowness, after losing a student, after losing his teacher. The only other Spectre who really talks to him is Macen, whose association with the former turian golden boy has also marred his career. He wonders if Shepard has had the same issues, the fruit of a poisoned tree. Maybe that's why she's gone over to Cerberus.

"It's okay," she says, her voice hoarse. She cracks a smile that is not a smile so much as a reflex. "You'd be surprised how often you get that reaction when you're a zombie."

"Ha," he laughs, and she looks at him oddly, and he realizes it wasn't meant as a joke.

"Two years to rebuild me, you know," she says, tracing the edge of her shot glass with her finger. "I was 'nothing but tubes.' Very expensive project."

"Oh," he says, unsure of what else to say. An old defense mechanism bubbles up; "You should see my medical bills," he cracks, and she twitches for a moment, and his hand automatically goes toward his pistol because maybe he's gone too far, but then she throws her head back and laughs.

"You're all right, Kryik," she says. She reaches out a hand slowly and he leans in a bit, and she claps him on the back and he wonders how bad this job has burned them if even the simplest gestures require this much of a physical opera. Was this what drove Saren mad, in the end? Is it what will kill Nihlus, too, or Shepard, or any of the others? He wonders and then tries to stop wondering when the mental roads become too dark.

"The Council revoked my Spectre privileges," she says, quietly, and he looks over, curious. She seems sad about that, this woman who looks like she could handle anything. Cerberus has done a good job rebuilding her - she's just as he remembers. Dark skin, wiry hair; mesmerizing dark eyes, strong muscles. The only hint that she's changed is the long scars that run down her face. He can relate; his hand drifts to the bloody stump that was once his long fringe, the price of a shot from his teacher.

"Sorry," he says, pulls his hand out and lightly pats her own. She doesn't wince. She grabs his hand and holds it. "The Council is full of shit, you know."

She throws her head back and laughs. "Have I mentioned that I missed you, Kryik?"

"Nihlus, please," he says, then to the bartender - "Give her another of what she's drinking."

"Make it double," she says, a gleam in her eyes, and he doesn't even mind that she's adding to his tab.

* * *

Three hours later, she's following him to his Citadel apartment. He's changed wards; from the Presidium to Tayseri. It didn't seem right to live in a glass apartment, not after what happened with his teacher. The paranoid part of him doesn't want to live with anything left from Before; he trades locations, furniture, style. He lives in a small apartment with short windows and tries not to look out of them.

Shepard doesn't ask about the spartan furniture, the short windows. She understands, and it's almost a relief.

"You're the first person I've had over since...since..." He shakes his head and doesn't bother to finish the sentence. She grabs his label and kisses him and he doesn't ask her if this is what she wants because they both know they're the only two who can understand one another's pain. They're both broken but they still fit together, the broken jabs of his broken skull and the broken slices of her skin wounds they carry, but not wounds that consume them.

In the morning, she leaves, presses a kiss to his skin, and he doesn't bother to say goodbye.

The way things are going, they'll see each other soon.


End file.
